Using Our Tovim Press Templates

All Tovim Press Authors have access to our templates as soon as they open an account with us. These templates are designed to be as easy as possible for inexperienced authors to be able to help create a professional-looking and properly formatted book. You choose a book size and template type, a font for chapters and titles, optional drop caps and flourishes/separators. You can choose from a variety of fonts to use, or pick your own and send it to us. Each template set has a ReadMe file to help guide you through the process. All sets come with a file format called .dotx, which can be used on most programs.

Our templates come in three-part sets. Books consist of three parts- the “front matter”, the “body” or middle, and the “backmatter”. Certain elements will always be in the front in a certain order. The main body will always be in the middle, and other elements are always found in the back. Not every type of book needs all of the elements, so these can be deleted. For example, a children’s book won’t need a Table of Contents, and a fictional novel won’t need an index. You simply highlight and delete what you don’t need. We will provide the final finishing touches like running headers as we put your book together.

The default format for our template uses Times New Roman in 12 pt for the body text and 1.5 line spacing. The running headers have the book title in all caps on the left-side page or “verso”, and the chapter title and/or number in italics on the right-side page or “recto”. Margins are .5″ with a gutter of .125″. Our books are designed to give plenty of room for people to comfortably hold them while reading, with a nice text and line spacing for ease of reading. This makes for an enjoyable experience.

These are the programs which can open the templates in various operating systems:

Earlier versions may also be able to be used, but the above should work flawlessly.

When you download a template, choose the set according to the finished trim size of your book. The most popular general size is 6 x 9 in. The template sets consist of the three sections, but if you have multiple chapters, we offer separate files for each chapter. This makes it extremely easy to keep track of all your files. They are downloaded from our templates page. The template sets will be numbered and labeled. One example is, “BodyTemplateChapter1.dotx”.

The first template is called “FrontmatterTemplate.dotx”. This contains everything that every book needs, including a Title Page complete with the Tovim Press logo, and a general copyright page. You can put your own specific copyright notice on it, but this general notice works as legal protection and should cover any book. the template also has other pages, such as Acknowledgements, Introduction, Preface, and Table of Contents. If more pages are needed for the Contents, just copy and paste it into a new page.

The last template is called “BackmatterTemplate.dotx”. Depending on the type of book you are making, this may be optional. It contains an index and some back pages that act as spots for memorials, ads or tributes. These may be used for fundraising for your book, or it can be used for Approbations.

The main body of a book consists of the chapter templates. They will be numbered individually, such as “BodyTemplateChapter1.dotx”. If a book only has a main body with no chapters, you need only use one “BodyTemplateChapter1”. All of these are regular templates without “bleed”, which are generally used for plain text, or pictures that only go to the edge of the margin. If you are doing a book without bleed, do not use a template meant for bleed, or it won’t turn out properly.

For books with pictures that go off the edge of a page, it requires “bleed”. This means that the pages must be slightly larger so that the printer trims some of the picture off as it is cut to size, ensuring there is no white space left around the picture so it looks finished. These template sets will be called “BLDFrontmatterTemplate.dotx“, “BLDBodyTemplateChapter1.dotx”, and “BLDBackmatterTemplate.dotx”. If your book does have bleed, make sure to get the Templates with Bleed, or your book will not turn out correctly. Our Templates with Bleed sets also come with .psd and png templates for Photoshop or other graphics programs, which is perfect for making special books like children’s picture books or fancy art and photography books.